I had no idea what in the Everstill was going on, but I could see the way the bark of that treetorelike invisible claws were attacking it. It tore like a piece of cloth, and the Tree of Life groaned louder than before, and then something slipped out those tears, too.
Liquid—and you’d think it would be sap, but this one was a silvery blue in color, and it glowed. Just like those rings had in the lower levels, it glowed.
Everything came to a halt for a tick.
Us, the wraiths, the tree itself.
When it groaned again, it was different. This time, it sounded like it was in pain.
“Silas!” March called, because he wasshakingas he held his hands on that bark still, and those tears leaked more of that silver sap—theTree of Years,the speaker had called it.
Because it was full of magic. Full oftime.
The wraiths moved.
I could hardly believe my eyes, but the more the tree groaned, and the more silver sap leaked from those tears, the faster the wraiths moved, stood up, let go of the others, turned towardus.My instinct was to turn around and back away, to run, but I didn’t. I only watched.
“Run,” Silas breathed, hands still on the bark. “Run—justRUN!”
Except running required us to be able to move our bodies, and we couldn’t yet. Because the silver sap spilled and the wraiths were onto it, the Hands abandoned on the floor, shaking still. They fell on their strange knees in front of the branch, making that awful sound that was a cross between a growl and a scream. Sticking their faces right onto those tears anddrinkingthe sap as it slipped out, licking it off the bark.
“It’s working,” Reggie whispered, a dumbfounded smile on his face. “It’sworking!”
Then the tree moved, too.
The next moment unfolded like a tale, like a fantasy, unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
Branches all around us moved, up and down and to the sides, exactly like branchesshouldn’t,like they weren’t made out of wood, like they had turned into ropes instead. They lashed out like tentacles of a giant monster lightning fast, caught the wraiths by the ankles, and yanked them upward, pulling them off the bark.
One wrapped around Silas’s ankles, too, hauling him up beside them, suspending him in the air upside down.
Screams, but they weren’thisscreams. No—Silas only went still, legs bound, arms falling down his sides, his face perfectly neutral, his eyes closed.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.This whole place was so, so wrong…
“Get them, get them, keep moving!” someone shouted, and the Hands already had the ones who’d been food for wraiths up on their feet.
Seth, Helen, Erith, pale as sheets but with eyes wide open, holding onto the Hands near them, limping farther and farther back.
“Ora—come on, we need those seeds!”
Yes, we needed the seeds to get to the next level of this wretched game.
ButIneeded the seeds, too, to get to Silas.
March and Reggie were trying. They were jumping up and down, barely able to graze Silas’s fingertips with theirs. The tree was holding him up high, and he wasn’t moving at all. Not a single inch.
Was he…
No-no-no—don’t think that word!
“Go, run—we’ll get him,” Reggie shouted at us. “Sy, hold on! Hold on, we’re gonna get you down!”
Except Silas wasn’t going to hold onto anything—the tree had him, just like it had the wraiths. They were paralyzed, too, their arms over their heads, those fingers, long and black, just dangling there for us to see.
Time’s Teeth, I wanted to burn every inch of them. I wanted to burn this whole tree to the ground, too, and the people who’d put us here.
This wasnota game—this was a fucking death trap.
